Looking back on the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 NBA playoffs, I realize that 1) the best defensive teams have a very good chance of winning the title (ala defense wins Championships) 2) we have been getting knocked out by some very good defensive teams, and 3) the rules changes after our Title really worked (damn Stern )

Our path: Mil-NJN-Ind-LAL.So, in 2004, not only were we the best defensive team in the playoffs, but we also beat the #2 and #3 best defensive teams on our way. Defense won the Championship. How good was our D? We only allowed 93 per 100 possessions and that number was skewed way higher because of a triple overtime game with NJ Nets, where they ended up with 127 points. That was a little higher than the 56 points they scored on us in game 1. Against Indiana, we held them in the 60's 3 times. They scored 83 once, which was their only game above 80. Best defense ever, period.

Our path: Phi/ Ind/ Mia/ SAS. Again, we were the best defensive team. On our way to the Finals, we beat the #2 defensive team and the #4 defensive team. SAS had the best defense in the West, and it prevailed. Notice how much higher the scoring was b/c of the rules changes. Total BS. This Championship was ours w/o Stern's meddling.

So, in the last 3 seasons, Det has had great defense, but not quite the best. Unfortunately for us, we have gone up against some defensive juggernauts in the ECF, which may explain why some of our best players haven't had their best moments.

Going through this exercise makes me realize how truly dominating we were in '04 defensively. I would love to watch that playoff series against New Jersey that year when it was just a defensive slugfest. We were held in the 60's as well. Lee, do you have the tapes?

In 4 out of the last 5 years, the title has been won by a team with the best defense in their conference. The other year, it was won by the team with the 2nd best defense after barely beating the team with the best defense.

Not that it matters much, but here is how we sit this year compared to the contenders to date on the season:
Bos- 100
Cle- 101
Orl- 102
LAL- 105
Det- 106 (this is the best part of our game by far right now and it's not nearly good enough). Our rebuild should focus on defense first at all costs.

Lebron, KG, and Kobe are all good defenders. We don't just need a superstar, but we need a defensive superstar.

Small ball high in performance? That's BLASPHEMY around these parts!!!

Has anyone ever looked objectively/statistically at how the late-game Sheed-Dice pairing fares versus the alternatives? I am getting tired of Lee's griping because I suspect that he is just a Dice-hater.

Small ball high in performance? That's BLASPHEMY around these parts!!!

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I could be making this up, but my balky memory tells me that Curry was playing a small ball lineup a lot the entire season, just not starting with it. When the team was playing well, smaller lineups were working well too, particularly at the end of games.

Which perhaps suggests that it's often more about how well you play rather than specific matchups.

Those stats haven't been updated for a while. They show that the Stuck/ AI/ Rip/ Tay/ Sheed combo has played for 249 minutes. On the NBA site, they have them down for 420 minutes at +49. The NBA site is current because they have their games played at the correct #.

In terms of +/- per minute, that makes that combo our 47th most productive.

At this point, that 2nd combo (AI, Rip, Prince, Sheed, Brown) doesn't appear on the top 50 in terms of total +/- or +/- per minute. So, it must have performed poorly since the 82games stats were posted.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, SB played the most in games where we started with it. Our strength of schedule in those games was extremely weak. Games with Kwame tended to be against Cle, Bos, Den, etc.

Since Sheed is the only player from the SB lineup to be in the positive on the season, then it makes sense that the SB lineups haven't performed well. As a whole, the entire Pistons team currently has only 2 players that are in the positive for the year, Amir and Sheed (not counting Chauncey). Herrmann is dead even. It's amazing we have a winning record. Since AI arrived (so for the last 44 games), we have played .500 ball and have been outscored by 49 points.

Originally Posted by basketbillsThat was highlighted last night when Kelser replayed one of the times Amir got lost on a screen and left KG wide open.

Key word...highlighted...he shot about 80 per cent when Amir was in. Let's not be obtuse about this.

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Obtuse? Sheed was guarding him. And KG shot 80 in the whole 1st quarter while Amir only played for 5:00 of that. There was 1 play where Amir stayed on the guard and KG hit an open jumper that Amir could have arguably guarded if he didn't miss his assignment... which we don't even know that he did.

Anybody notice how Cleveland scored 6 points in the first 7 minutes of the game yesterday while AJ was playing? These defensive stands just don't happen when he's out of the game.

This is all relative of course. Many what have you's, ins and outs, etc. Some guys were forced to play in SB lineups (AA) while others only played against good teams (KB). So, feel free to explain these results away at your leisure.

Coincidently, our top 4 defensive players, Kwame, Amir, AI!, and Sheed are all breakeven or better from a +/- standpoint. Maybe a similar coincidence that the top defensive team almost always wins the NBA title?

Afflalo-
The big abberation here seems to be AA. With him on the court, we score the most points and give up the 3rd most points. He does have an eFG of .506, so it's not like he's a terrible offensive player. But realistically, we know that he's opportunistic on O and a very good defender. The only thing I can think of is that a) SB tends to score more points and give up more points (faster pace) and b) AA spends a higher percentage of time in SB than the others.

Kwame-
The other obvious stand-out is Kwame. As I showed earlier, Kwame has played against a very strong strength of schedule (average team would be Denver). Not only that, but the reason he's usually in is because the other team has a big, dominant center. So, he's banging with the Shaq's, Yao's, Ilgauskas's of the league. Can we at least agree that KB is a good defender against big centers? We have our worst offense with KB in there, but that is probably b/c of SOS and shot blocking C's.

AI-
How did AI show up toward the top of our defensive ranking? Is it possible that his quickness, steals, and "ball watching" is actually outweighing his slight build? He's had his share of SB time logged. But he's also spent plenty of time with Amir, Sheed, and Tay, which would mask any defensive deficiency. The amazing thing is that he's tied for 8th on the offensive end. Who would have predicted that? Not sure what to conclude here. I'll keep an open mind.

Amir vs. Max-
We score about 2 points more with Max on the floor, but we give up about 9 points more. This is a huge spread. I would be tempted to say that a lot of this can be explained away by the fact that Amir has been playing with starters mainly while Max has been out there with Dyess and some crazy combos. However, the same results were true last year when they were both bench players. The defensive spread last year was 8 points between these 2 players... and we scored 1 point more with Max in, so same pattern. I like Maxiell and all, but I have to conclude that there is something about him that hurts us on defense. Not sure if it is his defensive rebounding, his size, his positioning, or what. I think that we are blinded by his attitude and highlights.

Fabio
Just for Lee, I'll mention that Herrmann really does suck on defense. He's not really an NBA player though, so it's unfair to criticize him heavily. On offense, he's ranking 2nd best on the team, but these numbers could be skewed by GT, playing against crappy teams, and a pure small sample size issues (he's played the same amount as Bynum).

Conclusion
So, when you are praising a player or ripping on them for their defense, take these numbers into consideration. They are not the be all end all, but they may indicate that you are seeing certain things and not others. These numbers are highly correlated, so separation can either mean that a player is much better than another in that category or that there is an outside factor causing the difference (e.g. player A always plays in SB while player B always gets to play with good defensive players like Sheed... or Kwame?).

I wonder how much of Amir's benefit comes from mostly playing beside Sheed. Maybe at least part of Max's lack of benefit comes from not being on the court with Sheed.

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I would guess that they both benefit from playing with each. But this is the reason that I mentioned last year's stats. When they were both coming off the bench, there was still a huge gap between them defensively. Last year they each played with Sheed, each played with Dyess, and spent a fair amount of time playing along side eachother.

Also, if Max spent most of his time with Dyess, then their defensive numbers would be almost the same. There is a big separation there too. This makes me wonder if we could ask how much are Dyess's #'s hurt by playing with Maxiell.

It's all a little strange to me though, because I will admit that if Maxiell has defensive weaknesses, they are not highly visable. It must be something that looks normal when watching him (like the other big men get better position on him or barely get their shots off over him because of his height). At this point it is a pattern though. You don't end up in Herrmann's neck of the woods on defense if you're doing everything right.

Below I lay out our schedule and make a prediction on the game based purely on current records (I didn't include any opinion). If a team has a significantly better record that us, I assume L. If they have a worse record, I assume W. If their W's are within 3 of Det's either direction, then it is 50/50.

So, if this thing plays out according to Hoyle, then 6-14 is a likely result, which would put us at 29-31 on the season. That would mean that we could be clinging to the final playoff spot in the East.

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So far, we are 30% of the way through this stretch and are tracking .5 games behind our quest to go 6-14. We need to win against a 50/50 team to get back on pace. Milwaukee without Redd is our best hope.

1) the league-wide shooting percentage on game winning shots is about .298.

2) How the players who are known as clutch live up to their reps.

The first thing that jumps out at me is how far down the list Chauncey is. 6 for 37 (.162 FG%). Keep in mind that this % does not include 3-pointers. If it did and CB's 6 makes were all 3's, then the average would be .243... still worse than average. And if I had to guess, I would say that 3 of his game winners were probably 3's and 3 were probably 2's. That would put him at about .200.

But, the amazing part is how many FT's CB was able to get in these situations and how often he was able to knock them down. 18-19 for a .947 FT% in game winning situations.

If you count every time he got fouled and hit the free throws as the same as a made basket, then his FG% rises to .326 without the 3's to about .366 with the 3's.

And as far as drawing fouls, CB got fouled 9 times out of 45 game winning shot attempts... 20% of the time! The only player in the league to get fouled on a higher percentage of game winning shots was surprisingly, Gilbert Arenas at 24%.

So, instead of calling Billups Mr. Big Shot, would it be more accurate to call him Mr. Big Flop?

AI checks in with a .394 average, which is pretty nice considering how difficult these situations are.

The final thing to learn from this study is that it probably doesn't make sense to go to your best player in a game winning situation. Since teams seem to always use their go-to guy and the league average is only .298 on these shots, then any player that you can choose as an alternative who can get you a shot > .300 would be a better option. That includes just about every single player in the league all the way down to Walter Sharpe. Also, if the defense is swarming your Mr. Big Shot, an alternate player would probably get an above average look.

The final thing to learn from this study is that it probably doesn't make sense to go to your best player in a game winning situation. Since teams seem to always use their go-to guy and the league average is only .298 on these shots, then any player that you can choose as an alternative who can get you a shot > .300 would be a better option. That includes just about every single player in the league all the way down to Walter Sharpe. Also, if the defense is swarming your Mr. Big Shot, an alternate player would probably get an above average look.

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Very interesting.

When the go to player passes off on a winning shot it seems he is crtiticized for not being a team leader..not wanting the ball during crunch time and a variety of other cliches.

But...in reality when Wade had the ball for the game winning shot the other night, for example...he maybe should have passed for a better shot.

There are a lot of conventions in pro sports that may be illogical. It takes a study like this + a coach like Popovich who has the confidence to break from tradition to ever get out of the rut.

Every once in a while there is a breakthrough that changes the common strategies. We've seen a lot of this in baseball over the years. In football, the 2-point conversion and when to go for it/ when not to has evolved. In bball, there is the decision on whether or not to foul when you're up 3. I guess these could be classified as memes to some extent.

It even spills out into the real world. One thing that comes to mind is that the Freakonomics guy produced a very compelling study that showed that seatbelts were just as effective as car seats for kids 2 and up. He used 30 years worth of real world crash data + labratory testing. When he produced his results, nobody wanted to believe it was true. How could a cheap solution be as good as an expensive car seat?

In our example here, you have the seat belt- Aaron Afflalo, and you have the expensive car seat- Chauncey Billups. If you're a coach and you're headed toward a brick wall with your 2-year old in back, which solution are you going to use? Probably the car seat. That way you're doing what every one else does and you won't get blamed if it doesn't work out.